Light in the Darkness
by Gremlin23
Summary: Restart of Darkness in Sanctuary. The dark wanderer is crossing the world of Sanctuary, leaving a trail of darkness and devastation in his wake. From a world unknown two heroes are drawn into the quest to save the world, but many wonder just what repercussions their arrival will cause. Self-insert fic, rated for violent scenes.
1. Chapter 1

"Hey G, you finally gonna tell me what's got you so jumpy since Wednesday?" my best friend Danielle asked me. The two of us had lived next to each other since third grade and I'd heard more than one person wonder, loudly, when the two of us were going to hook up. We were in tenth grade after all, just about everyone seemed to be hooking up randomly. Then again I'd also seen the massive fights and fallout as the rest of our class randomly switched partners. Me, I reckoned that there's no point messing with something that works and Dani shared my sentiments. The object of my musing poked me in the side, reminding me that I hadn't answered her. "I'll show you this afternoon. Hope you weren't planning on sleeping tonight," I answered with a grin. It had been a week since my pal Rowan had showed me Diablo, and I'd been salivating about it ever since. Finally I'd managed to convince my mom to advance my allowance a bit so I could buy it that Tuesday, and the resulting anticipation was what Dani was talking about. The two of us were going to make a dent in the forces of darkness that evening in a marathon gaming session that hadn't been seen since the two of us had split the cost of soul edge.

"So what is it?" she asked me for the hundredth time that day as we were deciding, (read: flipping a coin) on the soda we wanted in the little market on the corner across from school. "Not telling. If I can manage to not touch it for almost a week, you can take not knowing till we get home." I replied barely suppressing a grin. She kept badgering me halfheartedly as we trekked home and I managed not to snicker at the fact that she hadn't noticed that I was carrying her bag without her trying to take it back. We'd gone about two-thirds of the way when she resorted to bribery. "I'll... I'll let you play first if you tell me?" I barked out a laugh, "It's two-player." She thought about that for a bit, but it didn't exactly narrow the list of games I could have gotten. Her slight frown made me suspect I wasn't going to be allowed to head into town on my own again, which was going to make getting something for her birthday in April difficult. "Come on! You know you can't do this to me!" I simply laughed at her, she'd done the same thing to me in the past and I'd given the same complaint. I pretended to think about it. "I'll consider it for a kiss?" I asked only half-joking. She stared at me, which was a rather impressive feat considering we were walking and dodging traffic signs and street lamps occasionally. After a while she asked, "Left or right?" I answered "Center" without skipping a beat and she frowned at me. None the less she stopped and when I turned to look at her she stood on her toes and kissed me on the forehead. Mentally I added another tally to her score, she got me good with that one. I looked at her and smiled widely. I added two to my own score and said "I have considered it and decided that since we're almost home I won't tell you."

I pretended to have a sore shoulder all the way home as we split up at the gate. She went on to her house to change out of her school uniform while I went to go get the PlayStation and game. When I finally wound up in her living room she was waiting already. I told her to cover her eyes and got a blink in reply. Normally that would have set off a staring challenge but I wanted to play the game just as badly as she wanted to see what it was. So I took it out to show her and her smile made it all worth it. "Looks scary!" she said excitedly. Knowing her preference for horror games I headed off any disappointment and explained it was an Action RPG. she shrugged and the two of us set up what would be our world for the next thirteen hours.


	2. Chapter 2

I yawned I trudged up the dirt road to the factory I'd been working at for a few months now. I didn't particularly like the boss, but I had a job and I liked what I did so I filed the dislike under "It's a boss, you're not supposed to like him" and just kept at it. As I was cresting the rise I thought about that weekend Danni and I had faced off the hordes of monsters beneath Tristram. Her bowstring humming in counterpoint to the roars as I loosed torrents of elemental death on all who came before us. Checking my watch I imagined she'd be waking up any minute now to get ready for her job in the office of the meat-packing plant. She still lived with her parents where she always had, while I'd since moved to a little apartment next to a gas station as my parents had moved long since. I turned my thoughts away from anything with a bed, since five thirty in the morning is not the best time to have to get out of one.  
As I crested the rise and the factory came into view down the road I looked around and wondered if it was just me, or if it was rather darker than it normally was this time of morning. Even the clouds seemed darker than normal as I stopped to take a look around and I contemplated texting Dani to check the clouds because I think Krillin has died again. I chuckled both at the thought and at what she'd probably do to me for waking her up and began the descent to the factory gate to wait for the maintenance guy to show up and unlock the place. I hadn't taken two steps when the mother of all lightning bolts hit the ground not far from me. I cursed and hit the ground in the ditch next to the road hoping I would manage to get inside before the storm broke. Another lightning-bolt hit in front of me not three meters away and I covered my ears, which were ringing by this time. I was starting to get worried when another bolt hit to my left and the wind started picking up. I looked out of my improvised foxhole and thought of making for the gate, hoping the factory and it's lightning rod would make for a better target than little me in a ditch. I had just about resolved to hoof it when lightning started raining around me in a cacophony of noise and light. I didn't have time to wonder about the fact that I was the only target when something red flashed in front of me and the world went dark.

Everything went quiet and I thought I must be deaf after all those booms. Then the sound of a fire reached me and I let out a relieved sigh. I opened my eyes and immediately closed them again. I counted to five and opened them again, the same sight was revealed and I was confused. I looked around and took in what looked like a medieval camp of some kind, but I knew of no such re-enactment groups anywhere near my town. It wasn't a very big camp, mostly wagons and carts with a few tents and what looked like a rather hastily built smithy in one corner. I rubbed my hands through my hair in confusion and somehow the thought of Dani teasing me about going bald popped up in my mind. I started giggling when I noticed that my sleeve wasn't what it was supposed to be. I looked down and frowned at the sight. My faded old pair of black jeans had been swapped with a surprisingly similar set of black cotton pants. At least I thought they were cotton, I didn't know cloth all that well. My red t-shirt was now one of those ridiculous shirt things with laces at the neck I'd seen in a live-action kids show once and my overall jacket had been replaced with a similar blue jacket, only it was much thicker, a fact I appreciated as a chilly breeze ruffled my suddenly shoulder-length hair, and had those odd stick-like fastenings often used in Chinese outfits. At least my Boots were still almost the same. I could tell that the steel toes were gone, but they were still as comfortable as my old pair and I wasn't going to complain about a comfortable pair of boots. I resumed looking around at everything around me to try to get my bearings when I noticed the person nearby start towards me with what might almost have been a smile on his face if he'd tried harder.


	3. Chapter 3

"Greetings, stranger. I'm not surprised to see your kind here. Many adventurers have traveled this way since the recent troubles began. No doubt you've heard about the tragedy that befell the town of Tristram. Some say that Diablo, the Lord of Terror, walks the world again. I don't know if I believe that, but a Dark Wanderer did travel this route a few weeks ago. He was headed east to the mountain pass guarded by the Rogue Monastery. Maybe it's nothing, but evil seems to have trailed in his wake. You see, shortly after the Wanderer went through, the Monastery's Gates to the pass were closed and strange creatures began ravaging the countryside. Until it's safer outside the camp and the gates are re-opened, I'll remain here with my caravan. I hope to leave for Lut Gholein before the shadow that fell over Tristram consumes us all. If you're still alive then, I'll take you along. You should talk to Akara, too. She seems to be the leader of this camp. Maybe she can tell you more."

With that my feet hit the ground in what would be the story of a lifetime. In my usual manner, my feet hit the ground and I promptly fell flat on my face. My first reaction was confusion at some stranger talking about the events of a video game years old now. This was quickly followed by anger at some idiot playing what must be simultaneously the most thought-out and lamest prank in history. Well, except maybe that time Uncle Adolf snuck up behind Poland and shouted 'SURPRISE!'. My anger was short-lived though. No matter how you twist it, no one builds a small military/refugee camp with such primitive materials on a whim. I decided to take a walk around before I make any further plans. Who knows, I might find cameras?  
I mentally tossed a coin and headed left, intending to make a circuit of the camp. Right in front of me was a woman with an honest to goodness short-bow. I've read of the things, but the only bows I've ever seen were for competitions and looked more than pieces of engineering than bows. This, however, was a simple wooden bow about as long as her arm. She also had a painfully large chest, making my back ache in sympathy. What drew the eye, however, was her face. She wore a snarl that swapped places with a grimace now and then. Her dark demeanor and chain-mail outfit seemed to scream 'Piss off!" so I decided to give her a skip for now and go exploring. As I turned away from her I wondered where she'd found chain-mail. As far as I knew there wasn't anyone on my continent who made it any more. Adding it to my growing pile of what the heck questions, I walked towards one of the corners of the camp.

As I walked, I heard a sound I haven't heard in a long time. I picked up my pace and headed towards the sound of hammer meeting steel. The source shocked me even more than the dour woman from earlier. There, standing next to a forge working on what looked to be a simple pot helmet was a woman as tall as I was. Now I live in a harbor town so strangers aren't a rarity. All the same, it was rare to find a woman as tall as I was, and this woman not only matched my height, but shoulders as well, which was a first. Her outfit, however, had me starting to get suspicious again. I was pretty sure I would remember signing a contract into a career of porn, yet first I meet a woman with painfully large breasts and now I meet a female blacksmith wearing a pair of dangerously tight pants, a leather apron, soft-skin boots easily taken off, and nothing else. Not even the flimsiest of shirt covered her torso aside from the apron that protected her from the embers and flying sparks. I wasn't going to find out more standing there though so I walked up and waited for her to finish her work. She seemed to know her way with steel as she quickly shaped the last curve in the helmet before straightening and turning my way.  
"Hi there. I'm Charsi, the blacksmith here in camp. It's good to see some strong adventurers around here," she began with a voice so youthful and enthusiasm I was having a hard time guessing her age. "Many of our Sisters fought bravely against Diablo when he first attacked the town of Tristram. They came back to us true veterans, bearing some really powerful items. Seems like their victory was short-lived, though... Most of them are now corrupted by Andariel. It's really great to meet you. I've seen a few of your kind around here lately. I'm a little jealous... I wish I could go off adventuring with you. Oh, by the way... I'm Charsi, the blacksmith here in camp." She finished, smiling shyly. I immediately tossed all thoughts of this being a setup out the window. Despite both people I have met so far seeming to make speeches instead of merely talking, the odd woman in front of me couldn't possibly be faked. "Hi there ma'am. I am George, and it is a pleasure to meet you," I responded with a smile. "Oh so formal! Please, call me Charsi. If I can help with anything, you know, weapons or some armor, just let me know okay?" She turned back to her forge where she'd put the helmet back to heat and turned it over, inspecting the colour. I waved a goodbye as I ambled off, idly wondering how she had wound up where here. Or me for that matter.

I might have neglected to mention, but by this point I suspect that people would think that red is the natural colour of my face. See, first there was the under-dressed blacksmith, and then throughout the camp there were more women armed with bows wearing... Well I suspect that the hardened leather would probably stop a blunt weapon, but it covered so little of them I honestly had no idea what the point of the excruciatingly skimpy outfits was. I tried my best to ignore them as I walked around the camp. The camp seemed mostly wagons filled with random belongings, and a tent here and there. In the corner opposite Charsi I saw another wagon with a decidedly rotund man standing in front of it. He looked middle-eastern in dress, though his skin was lighter than I normally expect from people dressed like him. I walked up to him as he was rummaging in his wagon for something.

"Hello there!" I started, startling him into jumping at least four centimeters. He recovered quickly, however, and turned to me with a large, horribly forced, smile. "Good day to you partner! I'm Gheed and I can already tell that I'll be your best friend in this forsaken camp. A spare weapon, some gold, a small gem is all I want in exchange for the equipment you'll need on whatever quests you might undertake. Now, now, now... Don't be shy, all of my items are guaranteed for life and come with a two-day warranty!" he boomed at me. I pondered that for a bit and asked, "So, your items are guaranteed not to break for life, but if they do break I can't bring them back any later than two days?" He blinked and his smile seemed to slip slightly. I was starting to suspect that I was the first person he'd ever met who actually knew what warranties and guarantees were. I decided not to make any enemies just yet and smiled at him. "Don't worry, I'm sure I just misunderstood somewhere. What can you tell me about this place?"  
He regained his composure at this and seemed happy to chat for a bit. "Andariel's demonic forces have taken up residence in the forests around here as well as the Monastery. Uh-uh. I won't be venturing out of the camp. So, if you need anything, I'll be right here. When - or if - I get to Lut Gholein, I'm going to find the largest bowl of Narlat weed and smoke 'til all earthly sense has left my body." he told me. "This Lut Gholein," I asked, "the man in blue over near the fire mentioned it too." I figured mentioning other people might lead to more explanations, or at least more info such as what his name was. "Warriv was kind enough to let me travel with his caravan, but don't let him drag you into a search for a new Eastern trade route. I'm making a fortune right here... from the Rogues, of course! You, on the other hand, always get my best prices!" Gheed indulged my quest for a name. Something told me that he was going to nail me just as hard with the prices as he did the rogues, but I wasn't going to mention anything for now. "Well, things to see, people to do. I'll probably be back later!" I said by way of greeting and walked off to explore the rest of the camp.

There didn't seem to be much to the rest of the camp. Wagons, carts and tents in a barely organised mess. Only the occasional rogue as well. I stopped for a beat as it finally hit me. Rogues. As in the female character in Diablo that Dani played! I understood where the outfits were from now, though not what point they served other than to make non-existent males drool, and wondered about it all as I completed my circuit. Along the way I saw what had to be the exit. Two rogues were guarding it and I guessed they needed constant guards since no one thought to build a gate into the hole in the palisade. Then again, with demons in the forest, wood was probably hard to come by. I now was stuck with the problem of finding 'Akara' to find the way out of here. Had home been called Lut Gholein I would have been set, but it wasn't so I needed more info. I decided to try the woman in chain-mail. The bow marked her a rogue, and the better armor seemed to indicate seniority so I figured she was the leader Akara.  
"Good day ma'am. Sorry to bother, but are you Akara?" I greeted her. She glared at me and I resisted the urge to check if I had a stain on my new shirt. "I am Kashya. Welcome, outlander, to our glorious hovel. I know you're here to challenge the evil that's driven us from our ancestral home. But, know this. Akara may be our spiritual leader, but I command the Rogues in battle. It will take more than just killing a few beasts in the wilderness to earn my trust." I had an answer to my question at last and decided that I did not want to talk to her unless i had to. "Thank you ma'am. Have a nice day." I said and when she resumed ignoring me I walked over to the low stone wall next to the fire. I sat down next to a chest and leaned against the wall looking at the flames and thinking.

While I've never been the most normal of people, getting sucked into what appears to be a video game world was not normal by any definition of the word. Yet despite the seeming impossibility of it, here I was in the world of sanctuary with a new wardrobe; a slight, though noticeable, change in appearance and no idea how to get home. Oh, and half the time I speak to people the world suddenly feels like I've had a drink too many. No matter how I stared, the flames refused to break down in nerves and tell me what I wanted to know. I gave the chest next to me a thump and fell over sideways when the lid popped open. I scrambled to my feet and looked around if anyone saw me. All I needed was a camp of armed women to think I'm a thief. I quickly tried to close the lid of the chest when I saw there was just about nothing in it. There was, however, a book, a small pouch and a few bottles of bubbly liquids I didn't know. Curiosity beat caution and I picked up the book. On closer examination it appeared to not be a book at all, at least not in the normal sense of the word. Instead, it was a set of impossible thin stone tablets bound in wood with rings at the top and bottom of the spine. It had no markings, so I opened up to look inside and nearly dropped in when I did. The first slab was inserted into the wood of the cover and had, of all things, my name at the top. Below that it had a set of empty squares spaced in an odd pattern with a grid pattern all the way at the bottom. The next two slabs were covered in odd writing I couldn't understand but which seemed familiar somehow. From the books in my father's study I knew that it resembled Hebrew somehow, but not quite. From my own reading, I knew it had elements of the Norse runes as well. Regardless, it had my name on it so if that didn't make it mine I didn't know what did. Later on I would wonder why I had felt so possessive of the odd book, but for now it seemed right that I take it.  
I picked up the pouch next and let out a startled noise when it disappeared from my hand. I heard an odd noise and when I looked in the book one of the small slots in the first page suddenly had the number 100 in it. Confused, I put a finger to it only to fall over as 'something' popped up in my mind. I couldn't explain it, not even to this day, but somehow I knew that the slot indicated the amount of gold I had, and that it had limits I was far from reaching. I picked up the first of the little bottles, more like test tubes now that I looked closer, and it too disappeared only to reappear in miniature form in one of the squares of the grid pattern of the bottom of my book. Prepared for the shock, I put a finger to it and again got a flash of insight. This drink made me better when injured, though how I didn't know. Another surprise was that, after touching it, it appeared in my hand. I looked down at the chest wondering what to do next when I noticed odd little stone squares on the belt around my waist. I was about to put the vial down to look closer when it flew out of my hand as I got close to the belt and stuck to the stone square closest to where it had been. I pulled at it and it came loose again, and I experimented with how far away it had to be before it snapped to the belt as well as whether it would stick to the others. It did. I picked up the other bottles and checked them in the book as well. they were more healing drinks and I put them on the other four slots on my belt. I was about to close the chest when I noticed something to the side. It looked like a too-short baseball bat, polished and rather sturdy-looking. It too flashed into my book and when I checked it out more information came forth than normal. For starters, I knew that it was at peak condition and that it did about as much damage as would be expected. However, along with this I got the sense that it could attack more than one enemy every time I struck. I touched it again and instead of just appearing in my hand like the drinks, it also appeared in one of the slots above the grid. I felt a tingle rush through me and something caught my eye on the page next to the page of squares. Some of the runes were lighting up and suddenly I understood them.

They spoke of how I could channel energy into my weapon and make it speed up enough to let me attack more enemies than I normally would. I instinctively understood this, though I probably would have even if it hadn't been inserted into my brain by the book since it was similar to the chi techniques my one friend had told me about. I thought of trying it out, but it didn't seem right to do it in the camp, so I headed for the gate. I would find out what was going on from Akara later, right now I wanted to try this out...


End file.
